SUMMARY:
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TO THE CLERGY OF ROME: STERILE PRIESTS DO NOT HELP THE CHURCH
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LENT CHALLENGES OUR ROUTINE AND SETS US ON A PATH OF CONVERSION
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AUDIENCES
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
______________________________________
TO
THE CLERGY OF ROME: STERILE PRIESTS DO NOT HELP THE CHURCH
Vatican
City, 6 March 2014 (VIS) – This morning, in the Vatican's Paul VI
Hall, Pope Francis met with the clergy of the diocese of Rome. The
central theme of the meeting, inspired by the Gospel of St. Matthew,
was mercy. The Holy Father recalled how Jesus walked through towns
and villages, feeling compassion for those he encountered; people who
were “tired and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd”. “We
are not here to perform a spiritual exercise for the beginning of
Lent, but rather to listen to the voice of the Spirit that speaks to
everyone in the Church in this, our time, which is indeed the time of
mercy”.
This
“time of mercy” was Pope Francis' first point of reflection.
“Today, we forget everything too easily, including the teaching of
the Church! This is in part inevitable, but we must not forget the
important content, the great intuitions and that which has been
consigned to the People of God. And divine mercy is among these. …
It is up to us, as ministers of the Church, to keep this message
alive, above all in preaching and in our gestures, in signs and in
pastoral choices, such as the decision to restore priority to the
Sacrament of Reconciliation, and at the same time to works of mercy”.
Secondly,
the Pope asked, “What does it mean to be a priest?”. He explained
that “priests are moved by their sheep, like Jesus when he saw the
people, tired and exhausted, like sheep without a shepherd”. He
commented that the priest, following the example of the Good
Shepherd, is a man of mercy and compassion, close to his people and
the servant of all. “In particular, the priest demonstrates the
depths of his mercy in administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation;
he shows this in all his attitude, in his way of welcoming,
listening, advising and absolving. … But this derives from how he
lives this Sacrament himself. … If a person lives this himself, in
his own heart, he is also able to give it to others in his ministry”.
The
Holy Father added that the heart of a priest must be susceptible to
being moved, as “sterile priests do not help the Church. … We can
think of today's Church as a kind of 'field hospital', where we need
to tend to injuries. … There are many people who are wounded by
material problems, by scandals, even in the Church. … People
wounded by the illusions of the world. … We priests must be there,
close to these people. Mercy means, above all, taking care of wounds.
When a person is injured, this is the immediate help they need, not
analyses; the special care can follow, but first we need to tend to
the open wounds. Do you know what your parishioners' wounds are? Are
you close to them?”.
In
the Sacrament of Reconciliation, mercy means “neither undue laxity
nor excessive rigour”. “Often, as priests, we hear of the
experience of the faithful who say they have encountered in
Confession a very 'rigid' or a very 'flexible' priest, lax or
rigorous. That there may be differences in style is normal, but these
differences must not relate to the substance, that is the healthy
moral doctrine and mercy. Neither the lax nor the rigorous bear
witness to Jesus, because neither of them truly take on the people
they meet. … True mercy truly takes the person on board … and
acts like the Good Samaritan. … Neither laxity nor rigour make
holiness flourish”.
“Instead,
mercy accompanies the path of holiness, and helps growth. But how?
Through pastoral suffering, which is a form of mercy. What does
pastoral suffering mean? It means suffering with the people, like a
father and a mother suffer for their children, and I would say also
with anxiety”.
Pope
Francis shared with the clergy some questions that helped him when a
priest comes to him for advice. “Do you cry? How many of us cry
when faced with the suffering of a child, the destruction of a
family, before the many people who cannot find their path? The tears
of a priest … Do you cry, or is this a clergy that has lost its
tears? Do you cry for your people? Do you battle with the Lord for
your people, like Abraham fought?”
The
Bishop of Rome concluded by commenting that in the end, “we will be
judged for how we have been able to be close to 'every flesh', to our
neighbours, to the flesh of our brothers. … At the end of time,
only those who have not been ashamed before the flesh of his injured
and excluded brother will be admitted to the contemplation of
Christ's glorified flesh”.
LENT
CHALLENGES OUR ROUTINE AND SETS US ON A PATH OF CONVERSION
Vatican
City, 6 March 2014 (VIS) – Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, the Holy
Father presided over the traditional procession of penitence from the
Church of St. Anselm on the the Aventine Hill to the Basilica of
Santa Sabina, on the same Roman hill. Numerous cardinals, archbishops
and bishops take part, along with the Benedictine monks of St.
Anselm, the Dominican fathers of Santa Sabina, and the faithful.
After
the procession, Pope Francis presided over the celebration of the
Eucharist with the rite of blessing and the imposition of the ashes.
The Pope received them from the hands of Cardinal Jozef Tomko,
titular of the basilica, and subsequently imposed them on the
cardinals and various monks, religious and faithful. Following the
proclamation of the Gospel, he gave a homily in which he emphasised
that the conversion of the heart is the characteristic of Lent. “We
are called upon to undertake a path in which, challenging our
routine, we make efforts to open … our hearts, to go beyond simply
tending our own gardens.
“We
know that this increasingly artificial world makes us live in a
culture of 'doing' of the 'useful', where without realising we
exclude God from our horizons. But we exclude the horizon itself!
Lent calls to us to 'shake ourselves up', to remember that we are
creatures, simply that we are not God. When I watch, in my little
daily environment, some battles to occupy space, I think: these
people play at being God the Creator. They still have not understood
that they are not God”.
But,
towards others too, “we run the risk of closing ourselves up, of
forgetting them. But only we are called to by the difficulties and
suffering of our brothers, only then can we undertake our path of
conversion towards Easter”. To walk this spiritual path, three
elements are necessary: prayer, fasting and charity. All three
involve “the importance of not allowing oneself to be dominated by
appearances: what counts is not appearance, but what we have inside”.
Prayer
is “the strength of of the Christian and of every believer. In the
weakness and the fragility of our life, we may turn to God with the
trust of His sons and enter into communion with Him. And Lent is a
time for prayer, “a more intense and prolonged prayer … more able
to take on the needs of our brothers; prayer of intercession, to
intercede before God for many situations of poverty and suffering”.
Fasting
“has meaning only if it truly attacks our security, and if it
brings benefits to others, if it helps us to cultivate the approach
of the good Samaritan, who turns to his brother and takes care of
him. Fasting involves choosing a sober style of life; a life without
waste, without discarding things. Fasting helps us to train our
hearts in simplicity and sharing”.
Giving
to charity “means giving freely, because in this way we gives to
someone from whom we expect nothing in return. Giving freely should
be one of the characteristics of the Christian who, aware of having
received everything freely from God, that is, undeservingly, learns
to give freely to others. … Giving to charity helps us to live the
free nature of the gift, which is freedom from the obsession of
possession, of the fear of losing what we have”.
“With
its invitation to conversion”, concluded Pope Francis, “Lent
providentially reawakens us, shakes us from our torpor, from our risk
of living by inertia. … Why must we return to God? Because
something is not quite right in us, and is not right in society or in
the Church, and we need to change, to turn things around. This is
what is meant by needing to convert! Once again, Lent makes its
prophetic call to us, to remind us that it is possible to achieve
something new within ourselves and around ourselves, simply because
God is faithful … and continues to be rich in goodness and mercy,
always ready to forgive and start again from the beginning”.
AUDIENCES
Vatican
City, 6 March 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father received in
audience Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith.
OTHER
PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican
City, 6 March 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:
-
appointed Bishop Andre Marceau of Perpignan, France, as bishop of
Nice (area 4,283, population 1,204,000, Catholics 774,000, priests
204, permanent deacons 38, religious 290), France.
-
appointed Bishop Antonio Carlos Felix of Lux, Brazil, as bishop of
Governador Valadares (area 14,373, population 551,000, Catholics
387,000, priests 77, permanent deacons 10, religious 49), Brazil. He
succeeds Bishop Werner Franz Siebenbrock, S.V.D., whose resignation
upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.
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